Advice needed for my poor, sick rat!

The Rat Shack Forum

Help Support The Rat Shack Forum:

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

RatBrat

New Member
Joined
Oct 8, 2014
Messages
2
Location
Minnesota
I'm going to go ahead and apologize now for how long this is. I just want to do the best I can to help her.

Quick background: we started off with one rat, Wednesday in Dec 2012, and she was around 4-5 months old. My fiancee had a male rat before, and said we only needed one. I had never had a rat before, and had no idea what I was in for. As I began doing my research, I knew she needed a friend. In February 2013 we got Pocus. She was tiny, probably 8-9 weeks. We got our third rat, Baby, sometime in June. I didn't have a car at the time, having just moved to Minnesota from Colorado, and the nearest breeder was far away so all 3 of those rats came from Petco. After all the health issues, we learned our lesson to ALWAYS get rats from a breeder, but our little girls had wonderful personalities (even if Baby was always grumpy and hated us humans!) so I'm glad that we ended up being their home!

We brought Pocus home, she was a tiny little girl, and I noticed within the first couple days she was stuffy & sneezing a lot. I knew that a few sneezes could be normal due to a different type of litter/environment but then I noticed the bloody mucous on her nose. She went to a vet animal hospital through Petco and they gave us a combination of Baytril/Doxycycline twice a day every 12 hours. All was well for around 6 months and then she had another URI. Wednesday had gotten one a while before that, so we just got double the meds to treat them both. This time they saw our regular vet and he prescribed them Orbax. The rest of the year, she got one more URI that was also treated with Orbax.

It was towards the end of that year that Wednesday developed her first tumor :( She had a small mammary tumor, we took her to a vet other than our regular one (they were supposed to be good for surgery), but they said that even if we did do the $700 procedure she'd end up with another one. It grew fairly quickly and by the end of the year she had a second one under her lower leg.

This year in March, I noticed red marks and scabs all over Pocus's skin. I hadn't noticed anything weird until I gave her a bath, but it was on her back where she could scratch with her back feet. I kept an eye on it and wondered if she was being over groomed by the other rats, or maybe scratching herself too much. She kept itching the spots and as time went on, her fur started getting thin/splotchy in spots, and certain places were practically missing. I asked someone with rats for advice and she said it may be mites. I took her to the vet right away. He checked her over and said that it wasn't mites, and he kept her overnight for a skin test. He said she had staph, and prescribed Orbax Oral Suspension, Antimicrobial, 30mg/ml 20ml and told me to give her 0.2 ml every 12 hours. That was on 03/26. The weird spots on her fur hadn't cleared up once she finished the medication but I thought I'd give it a while. By May the fur had grown back in the places it was missing, but on her lower back she still has some scabs and scratchy looking marks that just WILL NOT go away. Any suggestions with what to do for that? She's been on medications again since then, but it still won't clear up!

At the end of May, we had to put Wednesday to sleep :( Her mammary tumor was big, but the one under her lower leg had grown to be even larger than the first and was intruding into her butt area, swelling into her lower abdomen and we were concerned about her being able to go to the bathroom/other bodily functions.

On July 4th, a holiday is the perfect day for an emergency, I went over to their cage and tapped at the door like usual. Pocus stayed on the lowest level and wasn't really moving, which is very unlike her. She was lethargic, I couldn't get her to come up so I had to go in there and pull her out. I set her down and she was doing this weird thing, I don't know how to explain it. She would sit there and open her mouth a little bit then close it, and when she opened her mouth she'd like push her head forward. But, she kept doing that, not moving much, and there was an occasional clicking sound. Her breathing seemed shallow, and of course no answer at the vet, but they're 2 blocks away from my house. I drove over there hoping someone might be there. There wasn't any luck so I had to go to the ER vet listed on their answering machine.

When we got there they took her and put her in an oxygen tank. We waited over an hour just to talk to a vet. When she finally did talk to us, she was very vague/unhelpful. She said that lung disease was common with rats and that this might be something that couldn't be treated, making it sound like our little rat wasn't going to make it, or it could be pneumonia, and actually said "I don't know much about rats." THEN tried to convince us to leave her there overnight with an estimated bill of $900. I told her I'd just take some meds and take her home. Our regular vet allows us to set up payments if we can't pay everything that day, and the ER place of course wouldn't. The receptionist was very rude, saying the vet needed to be paid for her services and "you can't go to the grocery store and get groceries then come back and pay later." They gave us Enrofloxacin, two 136 mg tabs in 13 ml dextrose solution to make 20 ml oral suspension. 0.2 ml/12 hours. After a day her breathing improved, and strange behaviors had stopped. Once she had completed the doses of medication, she still seemed congested.

August 11 we went back to our normal vet. He listened to her lungs, said they sounded clear and that maybe she has allergies. He saw she still had some funny skin spots and said we'd try some more antibiotics. He again gave us Orbax even though I said the Enrofloxacin from the ER helped quickly. I gave her the Orbax, she continued to sound congested, sniffly, and sneeze a lot. Baby got an ear infection, which we gave her some of the Orbax for and it seemed to help. She'd never really had to be on any meds before, though. (Baby had also gotten a tumor under her back leg and a marble sized one under her upper arm). I called and complained that the Orbax wasn't helping Pocus and I wanted Enrofloxacin, they said it's the same family of medication and they didn't have Enrofloxacin on hand. They authorized a prescription for it on PetMeds. I ordered it and she's been on the Enrofloxacin since Sept 18, and she AGAIN doesn't seem to be any better!! She's still sneezing, has bloody mucous sometimes, and sounds congested. I've been cleaning their cage every week, replacing the litter and cleaning every single thing in her cage.

Just before we got the medication, Baby got sick. I started her on the Enrofloxacin at the same time. She started breathing shallow and heavy, and would only hang onto the bars on the side of the cage. She'd hook her front teeth on one of the top bars and just hang there. She NEVER used to let us pick her up or show any interest at coming out of the cage. Then all of the sudden she wanted to be held all the time, sat with me for 2+ hours and never wanted to be put down. That seems to be signs of a pituitary tumor, from what I read on the Rat Fan Club.

She didn't seem like she was sleeping, quit eating and drinking. I kept giving her meds, water & mixed up baby food for nutrition. I tried to get as much in her as I could but she wasn't getting any better. She was dropping weight despite everything and her breathing was getting harder and harder. On Sept 26, she passed away while I had her out for a nap on the couch :(

Which brought us to this predicament. I knew Pocus can't be alone, and she had started to seem depressed after her first week alone. I kept giving her the Enrofloxacin crossing my fingers that one day it'd magically start working. I found a breeder that's about 40 mins away, and went to look at her rats. They were adorable and perfect, and how can you resist in a room full of baby rats?! A couple days ago we got Jinx, our new little baby rex. She was born August 19, and is super tiny. The bars on our regular cage are too wide, and she can slip right through. So, until she gets bigger, we went and got a smaller cage so at night or when we can't keep a close eye on her we know she can't get out or get hurt. My concern is about her being with Pocus. Pocus is still sneezing, A LOT, and I don't know if she might be contagious since she's been on antibiotics for so long. Jinx loves getting in the big cage and hopping around, playing with Pocus, and burrowing in the hut. But I'm afraid about exposing her to whatever Pocus has. I know that Petco rats are prone to health issues, but I feel Pocus has had such a rough history with URI's because of how sick she was when we first got her and she was so young.

Should I keep Jinx and Pocus completely separate? Is it bad for Jinx to spend any time in Pocus's cage with her? Is it okay for them to be together and play in a neutral area (not around Pocus's stuff with anything she might have on it)? I just want to keep her as healthy as possible. I don't want to have another list of issues like we've had with Pocus :(

Is there anything else I can give Pocus to help with the issues she has going on? Does anyone else have experience with Orbax and did it help them? I don't know if the reason she's having all these problems is because they always just give us Orbax and so it's become ineffective for her, or if that's just not the right medication. Maybe this vet isn't familiar enough with rats, but we've gone to another vet two other times and they seemed to know even less. Which leaves me in an odd spot, because I have a sicky rat and no vets around that seem to know much about them :(

ANY advice is so greatly appreciated. I've tried all I can for her, and she's still not any better. She sounds so congested and stuffy sometimes and I feel so bad but I know I'm trying. And I also want to protect our new little baby rat!

Thanks all for your help!!!!
 
Wow that was a crazy long read, but I do want to mention, you need to find another vet who won't charge $700 or more for a tumour removal :( The next time you see scabs on your rats, skip your vet's advice (staph infections of the skin or pyoderma aren't that common) and start with treating for mites. You can use Revolution for dogs or cats safely and easily. You can either get it from a friend who has an extra tube or order it online from Australia (I use Pets Megastore).

Pocus's issues are a weak immune system, probably due to poor genetics. She is not contagious, she's just more of a chronic URI girl. She should not get Jinx sick...only viruses are contagious like that considering almost all pet rats already have mycoplasmosis, but rats with stronger immune systems will be able to fight of the attack. It sounds like Pocus may have nasal issues, not an infection deep in her lungs.
 
Back
Top